


Small Wonder

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Various States [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies), War Horse (2011)
Genre: Gen, Man Out of Time, Moving In Together, Parallel Universes, Time Travel, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thor sets fire to some rain, Steve fails to move, Jim struggles with living in the 21st century, and Jane attempts not to whack her head with her own computer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Wonder

****

* * *

_When I’m old and grey, or thirty, or whatever happens first, I’ll need you to reassure me I didn’t waste a verse or worse, what if my life’s work is reduced to just myself_

_-Icon for Hire, “Hope of Morning”_

* * *

Steve still had not moved into Loki’s apartment. 

There were three reasons for this: first, SHEILD kept sending Steve off on secret missions; second, Steve still had a few months left on his lease and didn’t want to break it. It wasn’t so much as the fact he’d be fined a hefty amount, no, Steve did not wish to be rude. Third, Steve didn’t seem to know what to do or how to move. Steve suffered from a short attention span each time he started to pack things up, leaving boxes half packed. He chased off people who’d shown up to take things away he’d listed on something called Craigslist. So far three different people had shown up to take the ugly couch and each time Steve managed to drive them off with his “honesty” over how abhorrent it was. He’d done the same for the kitchen table and mismatched chairs. 

Loki was at his wits end. Steve’s possessions weren’t many, but they were too many to cram into Loki’s already furnished apartment. 

“You’re going to have to blend your lives together,” his therapist had informed him when he’d brought it up at his last session. “Take some of his belongings and replace yours with them. If you want this to work, you’re going to have to make concessions, Loki.” 

This was why Loki’s kitchen now sported the table and mismatched chairs (all which had been sanded, scrubbed, and whitewashed to match the rest of the kitchen). It was also why Loki was now sitting on Steve’s floor digging under his bed. Steve and Loki had returned from Anchorage after seeing James Nicholls was settling in the night before and Loki had stayed at Steve’s apartment, mostly so he could pack up the library of sketchbooks under the bed and get them move into the horrid pink room (which was still drunk tank pink) on the bookshelves he’d salvaged that matched the bookshelf Steve already owned that they’d move later. 

Steve had a whole lot of sketchbooks. 

Loki was absently packing them up when one fell open. Loki did not usually look at Steven’s sketchbooks without permission, but he could not look away from the face staring up at him. 

Loki felt a stab of jealousy, as he recognized the care in which Steve had carefully drawn the woman’s face. He made sure her spark of life was present in her eyes. The woman meant something to Steve. Without thinking, Loki flipped the page. This was one of Steven’s old sketchbooks from his time in Europe during the war. Care was given to each of the men who were part of his unit, yet none had the same spunk and character the woman possessed. 

“Steven,” Loki called, still staring at the first sketch of the woman he’d found. 

“What?” Steve asked, poking his head into the room. “What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

“It looks like you’re nosing through my things,” Steve said, folding his arms across his chest. 

Loki allowed his gaze to linger on Steve, enjoying the view. Steve noticed, shifted, and turned bright red. 

Loki was sure making Steve blush was never going to get old. 

“One fell open whilst I was packing them to take home with me. You’ve got a library under your bed,” Loki remarked. “And isn’t that lovely young lady going to pick the mattress up this week?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve said, frowning. “I think that person was a guy.”

“In a dress?”

“Well, yeah. People dress…how they want to these days.”

“I could wear a dress?”

Steve looked uncomfortable but nodded. “If you really wanted.”

Loki smirked, looking back at the sketchbook. The flare of unwanted jealousy surged up at the sketch in front of him. “Maybe I’ll just wear a tight pencil skirt.”

“Huh?”

“You seemed to like that.”

Steve crossed the room, looking at the sketch of the woman. “That’s Peggy.”

“How…mundane a name for such a beauty,” Loki dryly commented. 

Steve frowned. 

“Who was she to you? Your intended?”

“My intended?”

“Oh, what did you call them…dame?”

“No, uh, I…well, um, I don’t know,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess she liked me…that way. She kissed me and, uh, we made a date. I never showed up.”

From the darkening of those bright blue eyes and stiffness of Steve’s body, Loki knew why Steve failed to show up.

“She was going to teach me to dance,” Steve quietly said. 

Loki looked back at the image, feeling forlorn instead of jealous. 

“I…uh…well, um, I didn’t like her like, uh, you. I mean, I wanted to like her. She was great. Really great, but, uh…well…”

“What is different? She meant something to you,” Loki pointed out. 

Steve looked uncomfortable. Loki picked up a newer sketchbook, one Steve had gotten after he’d woken up. Filling the pages were sketches of the woman, along with Bucky and the others. The woman outweighed the sketches of the men, though. 

“Quite a bit more than maybe you realized. Have you contacted her since you’ve awoken?”

“Loki, she got old,” Steve said. 

“Your point?”

“If you vanished for seventy years, would you come see me?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, if we didn’t…well, uh, after we’d met that first time. Like, if you’d gone back to Asgard and left me here on Earth for seventy years. Would you want to disrupt my life?”

“Yes.”

Steve sighed, seemingly not understanding how selfish Loki was. 

“Steven, why would you ever think she’d not wish to see you?”

Steve shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Did you even inquire if she was dead or not?”

“No.”

“Who kept these?”

“There’s one guy from my unit who is still alive. He had them and when he heard I was, well, found…uh, he sent them to me.”

“You’ve not seen him either. Steven, why?”

“They got old,” Steve reiterated. “I’m still…”

Steve trailed off, waving his hands up and down his body.

Loki sadly looked at Steve, getting to his feet. Closing the space between them, he reached up and ran his fingers through Steve’s soft hair, pulling him closer till their foreheads hit. “Steven, even if I was old, wrinkled, and unable to walk, I’d still want to see you no matter what you looked like. They are your friends, your family, your connection to your life you lost. You ought to see them.”

Steve sucked a harsh breath in. “Fury didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Oh, screw Fury.”

Steve jerked away. “Don’t say that. It sounds all sorts of…wrong coming out of your mouth.”

Loki grinned. “Well? Where are Peggy and the other solider?”

“England. They both live in England.” 

* * *

_There are many things I would like to say to you, but I don’t know how_  


_-Oasis, “Wonderwall”_

* * *

“How does one set fire to the rain?”

Jane sighed deeply, kneading the space between her eyes. 

“Thor, get real,” Darcy urged. “You can’t set fire to the rain.”

“But, she keeps wailing she set fire to the rain.”

“She is NOT wailing,” Darcy snapped. 

“Then what is it that she does?”

“She’s singing, Thor,” Eric answered kindly. “And it’s a metaphor.”

“Pardon?”

If she wasn’t an adult, Jane would thump her against the table. Or throw her laptop at Thor.

She’d missed him, yes, and she was glad he’d visited (finally). 

Why had she missed him? He was so loud. 

Clearly, she was under some sort of mystical influence…it was only three days. You don’t fall so hard in three days, right? She hadn’t fallen that hard. They’d just kissed. It wasn’t like she was in love with him. 

And she only spent a year looking for him to ask him questions about the bridge his people used to travel the realms (the stars). Oh, and to ask him about the other planets out there. (Or realms as he insisted they were called.)

She hadn’t gotten very far in a year of trying to find a way to recreate the event that caused Thor to appear and vanish before her eyes. 

Then, one day this insane idiot who claimed to be Loki (Thor’s brother who KILLED him) showed up to take over the world.

(Seriously, who takes over the world?)  

Jane had discovered Thor had returned when she saw the grainy, jerky video of his arrival in the square in Denmark. 

He appeared in a thunderstorm, walked into the plane sitting there, and didn’t reappear till the battle fought in Malibu.

And why on Earth would you stage a take over in Malibu? (Loki was clearly mentally unstable, which was something Jane already knew thanks to the fact he’d sent down a metal, fire breathing contraption that KILLED Thor.)

(Yeah, so Thor hadn’t exactly stayed dead due to the fact he was a freaking god, but still. His BROTHER (or at least she thought that was what Thor and his friends were insinuating) KILLED HIM after lying to him about the death of their father.)

What really ground Jane’s gears was the fact that AFTER he’d dealt with his brother, it’d taken Thor MONTHS to contact her. And she had the feeling he’d only come looking because someone had reminded him about her existence.

“You know, you could set fire to rain if it was acid rain,” Darcy suggested, that tone of excitement in her voice that did not bode well for anyone within twenty miles. 

“Darcy,” Jane exasperatedly moaned. 

“What? It’s true. That stuff totally firetastic,” Darcy insisted. 

“What is acid rain?” Thor inquired curiously. 

Jane was never going to get anything done. 

* * *

_Wind’s in the east, mist coming in, like something is brewing, about to begin / Can’t put my finger on what lies in store / I fear what’s to happen all happened before_  


_-Turin Brakes, “Chim Chim Cher-ee”_

* * *

James wasn’t sure he liked the twenty-first century. 

“What are you watching?” he asked, walking into the room that was open to the kitchen. 

Jim wasn’t sure the actual name for such a room was as Laufey-Odinson referred to it as a living room, Jess called it the family room, and Rogers called it a TV room— which was what Jim tended to refer to it as due to the fact it contained a TV (strange object— amazing, but odd. In Jim’s day, they had moving pictures, but they made no sound. Now they moved, were in color, made a whole lot of noise, and were broadcast all over the place). Things these days had multiple names. Take the object used to operate the television. Jessica called it a clicker, Laufey-Odinson a clicker-remote, and Rogers called it a channel changer. It did not click, it wasn’t remote, but it did change the channel, so Jim called it a channel changer. 

Out of the strange people Jim had met since arriving, Rogers made the most sense and he was misplaced in time just as Jim was (which might have been why he made sense to Jim). 

“ _South Park_ ,” Jess replied.

Jim frowned in distaste, as every other word was bleeped out of the cartoon child’s mouth.

“Aren’t cartoons for children?”

“Nope. Whacha up to?” Jess asked over her shoulder. 

“I am going to reheat some of our supper leftovers,” Jim replied, turning around and heading into the kitchen. 

“In the microwave?”

“Yes.” 

Jess bounced over and leaned against the bar that separated the TV room from the kitchen and grinned. “I’m proud of you. Loki didn’t understand the microwave for about a week, I’m pretty sure Thor killed Tony’s with a hammer and is no longer allowed in the kitchen, and Steve is still confused why it doesn’t kill us each time we use it.” 

Jim chuckled softly. “Ah, yes. Well, I figured if it was in every home as you so insist, it is not about to kill me.”

“Steve hears microwave, associates it with radiation, and freaks,” Jess explained. “Don’t try to get him to use an x-ray machine.”

Jim nodded, opening the refrigerator (an item he was familiar with, only not in the form they currently were in) and got the bowl of soup out. He stuck it in the microwave after removing the lid (he’d learned the hard way what happened when the lid was left on). He hummed to himself absently over the noise of the vulgar show Jess was watching on the television.

“Jimmy, how’d you like to go to your homeland?”

“Pardon?” Jim asked as the microwave chimed, signaling completion.  

“Tony just texted me that Thor’s planning to set fire to the rain outside of London,” Jess said, pocketing her mobile phone. (That invention was something Jim was having as much trouble as Rogers in understanding. It did everything and quite a few unknown tasks. While Jim was quick to catch onto the Internet (where had it been when he was at university?), the other tasks a cell phone did were like magic to him.) 

(Phones were still relatively new to Jim to begin with, so it was understandable he was having difficulties accepting the tiny, flat plastic thing being a phone. And there was no operator. What did those people do if they weren’t connecting you to others? And who did it?) 

“Set fire to the rain?” Jim asked, taking the bowl of soup out of the microwave. He blew on the surface then dipped his finger in to test the temperature. 

“Yeah. Evidently Thor heard the song by Adele one too many times and now wants to actually set fire to some rain,” Jess explained. “I didn’t know he was back from Asgard.”

“You cannot set fire to rain, can you?”

“Acid rain, I guess,” Jess allowed. “I mean, if you pour oil on the surface of water, it’ll burn.”

“That’s the oil burning. And rain…”

Jess shrugged. “Tony’s willing to send a jet for us. While I don’t usually like taking his bribes…neither of us can afford a trip to England. It might be nice to visit the homeland, yeah?”

Jim sighed. She spoke the truth— both about the money and that it’d be nice to visit England. He missed his homeland dearly. Oddly, there were times Alaska in the late spring reminded Jim of England (mostly because it was forever raining and quite green). 

Jim had never had to find a job till he landed in Alaska. His mother and father were both members of the peerage, thus did not bother themselves with mundane things such as work. Jim’s position as youngest son, out of five, put him at the bottom of the list for inheriting, so Jim had known— thanks to his father’s gambling, his eldest brother’s sore ability to manage money, and Mother’s out of control spending— he’d need to be able to support himself in some manner. As he’d plodded through university, he’d felt the change in the air. The middle class was on the rise. People were becoming wealthy (more wealthy than the nobility) by hard work. He had grown up with his parents and those around him scoffing at the self-made millionaires in America, and yet many married American heiresses to get at the sorely needed money. 

His brother had done that, married an American. She was stunning, poised, and came with more money than anyone knew what to do with. 

And she and his brother detested one another. The only person she was able to stand in the family happened to be Jim. 

“Oh, Jimmy, please don’t run off with the Army,” she had begged. “Who will entertain me at these dreadful things?”

The dreadful things being daily dinner and tea. 

Jim knew the military was the only acceptable, money-making endeavor he could part take, so he joined the army upon graduation, bought a horse after being promoted to captain, and road off to France to die. 

Then, his horse went and sent him off to Alaska. And not even Alaska of his own world, but a parallel universe and in the future. What little money he’d scraped together during his years of service was gone and his military training was obsolete. He knew he needed to find work, yet had no clue how to do so.

So, he cleaned Jess’s house for her whilst she was working.

He knew, wherever his family was, they were all spinning in their graves. 

“I wanna go. I think I can both swing a week vacation,” Jess said, jolting Jim from his thoughts. 

Jim gave her an unsure look. Besides the fact it would be improper for them to travel together— oh, what was he thinking? They lived together unchaperoned. 

That had caused a near heart attack when Rogers and Laufey-Odinson told him they were leaving. While Jim knew he’d never do anything improper to Jess, he was still highly uncomfortable with the whole idea of living with Jess unsupervised. 

“How can you leave her with a strange man?” Jim had asked Laufey-Odinson with wide eyes. 

No one had outright told Jim, but he had noticed Laufey-Odinson’s protective older brother behavior towards Jess. 

Rogers had shifted uneasily, and glanced at Laufey-Odinson out of the corner of his eye. He clearly did not like the idea of leaving Jess and Jim on their own.

“You’re a gentlemen,” Laufey-Odionson had proclaimed, not knowing how correct he was, as Jim hadn’t told anyone the fact his father had been (was) the Earl of Bridgewater. (Partly because he didn’t think they needed to know, partly because of how history had happened on this Earth. His family wasn’t anywhere listened in any peerage. Bridgewater was an extinct title and had never been granted to the Nicholls.) “You can look after her in our steed and make sure she stays out of trouble.” 

Jim tried his best to keep Jess out of trouble, but he was still unclear what trouble in this day and age was compared to what he viewed as trouble. Example: today Jess was wearing a skirt (or she claimed it was a skirt) that Jim would define as trouble. Jess, along with the rest of the world, saw it as perfectly acceptable to wear a skirt that looked more like a scrap of cloth than proper clothing.

“Come on, Jimmy. Please?” Jess asked, staring at him with big puppy dog eyes. 

“Alright,” he sighed, unable to ever say no to those eyes. 

* * *

_And we’ll bask in the shadows of yesterday’s triumph / Sail on the steel breeze / Come on you boy child, you winner and loser / Come on you miner of truth and delusion, and shine_  


_-Pink Floyd, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”_

* * *

It took Darcy and Thor (with the help of Tony Stark) about a week to find some rain flammable enough for Thor to set fire to. 

Jane and Eric huddled inside watching the pair in a massive downpour outside London. (They’d been working in Norway, so it hadn’t been _that_ far, but Jane still wasn’t pleased with this ‘vacation’ or the fact they couldn’t find acid rain to set fire to somewhere closer. Or why she had to come along.)

“Is this safe?”

“More than likely not,” Eric conceded. “But at least, it’s a unpopulated area.”

“We’re in England. It’s populated,” Jane grumbled.

“Oh, cheer up,” Eric urged. “You are young, live a little.”

“By setting fire to the rain?” 

Eric shrugged. He placed his hands in his pockets and something roared outside. Jane whirled around and saw fire raining down on them. 

“Oh god,” Jane muttered. 

She half expected Thor and Darcy to return to the cottage they were staying burnt to a crisp, but both were laughing up a storm as they got closer to the house. The protective rain gear Tony Stark had sent along worked brilliantly.

“I can’t believe it,” Jane muttered, turning around as the pair re-entered the cottage. Darcy was the first one to re-enter the living room. “You set fire the rain.”

“ _‘And I touched your face while I watched it burn_ ,’” Darcy sang out, lightly tapping Jane’s cheek as she passed. 

She reeked of smoke. 

“It was only possible due to Mjolnir,” Thor said, holding up his hammer. “And it is no longer on fire.”

“Just acid,” Darcy added. “Totally safe now.” 

“It does not speak well of your realm you have water you can set flame to,” Thor offered. 

The door to the building banged open and someone burst out, “OMG! Did I just see Thor set fire to the rain?!”

Jane looked around for the source of the voice, whirling around to face the doorway. There was a girl who looked like she’d forgotten to dye her hair for a few months bouncing in the doorway, a look of pure glee on her face. 

“Seriously? I saw memes with Thor setting fire to the rain on the Internet back home and thought it was hilarious! I didn’t believe Tony when he said you were actually going to do it!”

“Lady Jessica!” Thor boomed, throwing his arms out and doing the typical over exuberant Thor greeting people he liked got. “How good to see you! You look well!”

“I’m orange,” she pointed out. 

“Jess,” said an amused British voice from behind her. “You are not orange.”

“Oh, don’t you try to make me feel better about this bad spray tan I’ve got going for me,” Jess, the odd haired girl, threw over her shoulder. “You coming in, Jimmy?”

Jimmy entered, a wide smile on his face as he removed his wet fedora hat. 

Darcy sucked in a lot of air and whistled. The man was rather…beautiful…even if he looked as if he’d stepped out of some period drama between his classic trench coat and hat. 

“You must be James, Son of Nickel!” Thor boomed.

Jess snorted, while Jimmy’s smile faltered a little. He held his dripping hat in one hand, looking a little awkward. If felt as if he was waiting for someone to offer to take his damp coat and hat.  

“Nicholls,” Jess corrected, peeling off her own rain jacket and throwing it at Jimmy, who caught it without missing a beat. “He’d be the Son of Nicholls, not nickel.”

“He’s worth more than five cents,” another British sounding voice said from the hallway. “Jessica, why did you throw your wet coat at James?”

How many people were dropping by this mostly run down cottage? 

Another man entered, looking awfully familiar. Eric tensed up next to her, which told Jane she was right in thinking the rather delicate, dark haired, green eyed man dressed in rather formal clothing for the countryside was indeed Loki of Asgard, AKA Thor’s INSANE little brother.

What was he doing walking around free? 

(Thor was unusually tight lipped when it came to his brother, offering some weird story about how there had been two Lokies. One was good and one was MENTAL. And, if that didn’t sound weird enough, at some point the two Lokies combined, or as Thor had put it: Loki put himself back together.)

(Jane didn’t believe any of that, as it made no sense.) 

(No matter most of what she spent her life trying to prove made little or no sense to people, but it made sense to her, so there.) 

Before she’d realized what she was doing, she had crossed the living room and punched Loki in the jaw (she’d been going for the nose, but he was too tall for her to reach).

“That’s for trying to take over the world,” she informed him, glaring up at him. She would have said it was for Eric, but since he was in the room, she figured he could defend himself against the tall menace. 

Loki’s head had snapped to the side from the force of her punch. He’d kept it facing the position she’d thrown him into for a moment till he raised a hand to his cheek and turned to look at Jane. Instead of being angry or upset she’d just punched him (ow…she punched a god, that was stupid), he actually smiled at her.

Not smirked, not sneered, but a real smile. 

“I like her,” he simply said, lowering his hand. 

“You like her?” Darcy squeaked.

“Are any of you going to help me here?” came another voice, this time American. “It’s pouring rain and smells like burt rubber out there.”

And in walked a soaking wet Captain America holding quite a few overstuffed suitcases.

“And you’re burdened with glorious suitcases!” Jess crowed. 

“I apologize!” Jimmy (or James) exclaimed, dropping his hat and Jess’s wet coat on the ground in his haste to ease Captain America’s burden. 

“What the hell is going on?” Jane demanded.

“I’d like to know as well,” Eric said faintly.

“ERIC!” Jesse boomed, throwing her arms out and doing a rather good impersonation of Thor. “Oh, crap. You don’t remember me.”

Eric stared at the girl, then Loki, then back at the girl. Behind them, Captain America and Jimmy (James) got the luggage situation under control. 

“You came first,” he whispered, suddenly staring at her shoes.

Jane looked. No wonder Eric remembered her shoes— they were blindingly orange. 

“Yeah! That was me! And one half of Lo,” she said, jerking her thumb at Thor’s Mentally Unbalanced Brother, who for some reason kissed Captain America on the cheek before vanishing off down the hallway with an armful of wet coats. “Then the other half showed up and all went to hell in a hand basket!”

“Must you sound so cheery about that?” Loki’s voice asked, drifting down the hallway. 

Everything was a little much for Jane to take, so she sat down. Having forgotten she wasn’t in her lab, or near a chair, she fell to the ground with a sounding thump. 

“Jane!” Thor boomed, rushing to her side. “What is wrong?”

“I think Jane’s having trouble processing,” Darcy offered. 

Thor knelt down next to Jane and began to rub circles on her back. Steve and Jimmy (James) re-entered, having unloaded the luggage somewhere. 

“So, I’m Darcy.” She waved in a big circle. “I don’t know anything about science, even though it states on my degree I’m a political science major.” 

“Hey, me too!” Jess exclaimed, holding out a fist for Darcy to bump, which she of course did. “Oh, I’m Jess. I’m from Other Earth, but I currently live in Alaska with a guy from 1914.” 

Jimmy (James) sighed. 

“I’m Steve Rogers,” Steve announced, shaking Darcy’s hand for some reason. He turned to Jane, looked awkward, then lowered his hand when it was clear Jane was simply going to stare blankly at him. “Sorry for tracking all that mud in. If you tell me where a mop or something is, I’ll clean it up.” 

Jane didn’t answer, nor did anyone else.

“I believe everyone knows me,” Loki drawled. 

“And you?” Eric asked, looking at Jimmy (James). 

“Oh, forgive me,” he said politely. He held out his hand to Eric, “James Nicholls, but you can call me Jim.” 

“Captain James Nicholls,” Jess corrected. 

“I’m no longer a captain, nor was I ever one in this world.” He looked as if he was leaving something else out. Jane eyed him curiously. 

“What does that mean?” Jane asked, pushing herself to her feet. “You said you were from Other Earth and you just insinuated you’re from another world. Are you guys from another planet? Like Asgard? Or one of the other seven? I’ve got the drawing here.”

Jane whirled around, once again forgetting she wasn’t in the lab, but a living room of a run down cottage. She made an angry noise.

“Jane, they are not from one of the Nine Realms,” Thor quietly said, putting a hand on her shoulder. 

“Nope,” the odd haired woman quipped. “Parallel universe here and he’s from a completely different parallel universe and the past.”

“Are you not technically from the future?” Jim reminded the girl.

“Yeah, like six months.”

“It was a year, Jessica,” Loki corrected. “Give or take.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Wait a second,” Jane said, putting her hands on her hips. “Are you telling me there are parallel universe and time travel going on?”

She eyed-balled Jim and Jess. Jim looked as if he wasn’t sure what was going on, while Jess was smiling at her. Just as Jane was about to ask something else, the door burst open again and yet another person entered. 

“Good afternoon, Ms Foster,” greeted Agent Coulson.

“No,” Jane groaned. “No! There’s no weird artifact and I didn’t see anything! And I already signed that form!”

Agent Coulson smiled vaguely. “I’ve not come to take anything away from you.”

“Oh.”

“I’m here to offer you a job,” Agent Coulson said. “Will you take it this time?”

Jane glared, but didn’t say anything. 

Agent Coulson eyed Loki for a moment before turning his attention back to Jane. 

“Well?”

“Tony told us,” Jess blurted out, making Coulson turn to her. 

“Mr Stark told you what exactly?”

“Thor was going to set fire to the rain in England,” Jess explained. “So, uh, that’s why we’re here. And, well, uh…then, when Loki found out, I guess he dragged Steve over.”

“Why are you explaining this to him?” Loki asked. “SHIELD is well aware of where you take James.”

“Yeah, I know, but…”

Jim sighed. 

“Well, Dr Foster?”

“What?”

“Would you like to be part of the parallel universe research group we’re setting up?”

“What?” Jane screeched, leaping to her feet. “Why…what…how…”

“Where and when?” Darcy asked. 

Agent Coulson glanced at Darcy before looking back at Jane. “There is no alien artifact, only the readings we’ve got from when Mr Laufey-Odinson and Ms Witton came through before Loki of Asgard and the ones we picked up when Captain Nicholls appeared a few months ago.”

Jane stared at the handsome man, who looked a little less as if he was supposed to be on PBS now that he’d removed his overcoat. Jim gave a rather uncomfortable smile, seeming to decide it was not worth arguing with the agent over his title. 

“As I asked before, where and when and do we get to study him?” Darcy asked, pointing at Jim.

“Darcy!” Jane squawked, while everyone except Jim and Jess chuckled. 

“I believe I am not part of the study,” Jim allowed, looking over at Loki for a moment. 

“Thor,” Loki said, turning to his brother. 

“Yes, Brother?”

Loki waved a hand towards Jim and didn’t say anything, but Thor seemed to understand what his brother was asking as he suddenly changed his demeanor and gave Jim his full attention. Jim stood his ground proudly and met the eyes of the God of Thunder. 

“He kind of looks like he could be Loki’s brother,” Darcy whispered rather loudly during the staring match. 

Jess snorted. “He’s heard that before.”

“He looks nothing like me,” Loki sneered.

“Yeah, neither does Tom Hiddleston,” Jess said, poking Loki in the side. 

Jane stared, watching the two poke and prod one another while trading barbs about someone named Tom Hiddleston. 

“Brother,” Thor rumbled. 

“Yes?”

“You are right.”

“How right?”

“Magic sent him here.”

“I could have told you that,” Jim said. 

Both Loki and Thor stared at him. Jim gave a sheepish grin, tucking his hands into his pants pockets, flopping his hair out of his eyes. 

“Why did you not say anything? You know how you came to be here?” Loki inquired.

Jim looked uncomfortable and broke eye contact.

“None of us are gonna think you’re crazy, Jim Boy,” Jess said, flopping down on a worn looking couch. “We’re all a little bonkers here.”

“I am not crazy,” Darcy cleared up. “You all might be, but I am not insane. I’m the only sane person here.”

“Steven is not crazy,” Loki replied, eyeing Darcy. “Nor can I say Thor, Captain Nicholls, Agent Coulson, Dr Selvig, or Dr Foster are mentally unstable.”

“Noticed you left you and Ombre Hair over there out,” Darcy noted. “And me.”

“You already entered yourself onto the list,” Loki pointed out. “I simply added those who are not mad to the list.” He turned away from Darcy and said to Jim, “How did you come to be here?”

Jim took a deep breath, pushed his shoulders back and looked at everyone before speaking. 

“My horse sent me.”

Judging by the expression on everyone’s faces except Thor and Loki, Jim should be excluded from the non-crazy list. 

“His name was Joey. Is Joey?” Jim asked, looking unsure which tense he ought to use. “He, well, I had this dream shortly after I left hospital. He appeared in the field where the charge took place. He told me he willed me to safety.”

Loki and Thor looked as if they were taking what Jim was saying very seriously. 

“Wait, what did your horse tell you his name was?” Jess asked. 

“Joey.”

“No, I think she means, did he ever have a different name?” Loki corrected. 

“Oh, no. But…” Jim looked uncomfortable and pressed his lips together. “He said Loki was his father. Or mother.” 

“OH!” Jess exclaimed, leaping up off the couch. “He’s Sleep Near!”

“ _Sleyp-nir_ ,” Loki corrected. “S-L-E-I-P-N-I-R. Sleipnir.” 

Thor frowned. “Father’s horse?”

“According to Midgard myths, my son,” Loki said, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, yes. I read that myth. If was funny. Yougave birth to a horse,” Thor said, nodding and thumping his brother on the back.

Steve choked. 

“Joey did not have eight legs, but he told me that…his mirror sister had told him that his mirror self had eight legs and was the royal steed,” Jim explained. 

“Okay, so one of Other Loki’s kids sent Jim here,” Jess said.

“What the hell is going on?” Jane demanded. 

Everyone in the room startled, clearly forgetting she was there. She fumed for a moment. 

“In plain English, explain.”

“I’m unsure plain English allows me to explain,” Jim said, giving an uncomfortable laugh. “But I will endeavor to try.”

“You do that.”

“My horse, Joey, explained in a dream that when he felt the life leaving me, he willed me to safety. He was unsure how he’d moved me across realities, but he had. During the dream he explained that in his world, Loki had given birth to him and the All-Father, as punishment to Loki for having birthed a horse, sent him to Midgard to be a mortal horse. Each time he dies, he is reborn as a different horse. When I knew him, he was Joey, a thoroughbred.”

“He’s met Hell, correct?” Loki inquired.

“Was that the mirror sister? In the legends isn’t the daughter’s named Hela?” Jim asked.

“Or Hell,” Loki allowed. 

“Mom gets around,” Jess muttered. “She knows EVERYONE except me.”

“What?” Darcy squawked. “You’re mother is Hell? Wait, Hell is a person?”

“Hel, with only one ‘l’ in this instance, is in Midgardian myths my daughter. In this reality, she is simply the Queen of Nieflheim and not someone you’d wish to know.” 

“Yeah. However, the nice one who likes to travel and is Loki’s kid from another reality is my mom! Yay for being half mortal!” Jess exclaimed, twirling a finger. 

Darcy blinked. 

“How is this possible? How many alternative realities are there?” Jane breathed, her mind whirling and what this meant for her own research. “Can we go there?”

“No,” Loki stated flatly. 

“Then how’d you get here?”

“I came through the Tesseract after falling into the void,” Loki replied. “The void ripped me apart into many different pieces. Hel put me back together. Well, parts of me back together.”

Jane stared, unsure where to go with her questions. 

“That was why there were two of you?” Eric inquired calmly. “Part of you went…to where she was, the other part went…”

“Elsewhere,” Loki finished. “Hel found pieces of me drifting in the void. Before she was able, the madness, rage, and anger had gone elsewhere. What was left, she sent to Other Earth, to Jessica— her daughter.”

“Why?” Jane asked. 

“For companionship,” Loki flatly said. 

“Then why he’s here?” Darcy asked, indicating to Jim, who looked at Darcy as if she were a bug. 

“His horse willed him to be safe,” Loki replied. “You are safe, are you not?”

“Some days I wonder,” Jim muttered. 

“So, to recap,” Agent Coulson began, rocking back and forth on his heels, “Loki got split into two different beings and put himself together at a later date, Ms Witton is from a parallel Earth and a year in the future, and Captain Nicholls is from yet another Earth and 1914.” 

“I think I’ve caught up time wise,” Jess pointed out. “It was fall 2013 when we left.”

“It is June.”

“Oh, so still from the future then.” 

“So, Ms Foster, would you like to join our research time and make sense of all this information with science?” Agent Coulson asked, looking politely at Jane. 

Jane ogled him for a moment before nodding. 

“Wonderful,” Coulson said, reaching into his pocket and taking out a Stark Pad. “Now, just put your thumb here.” Jane did. “And here.” Jane pressed her thumb again to the screen. “All done. You’re now employed by SHEILD. Now, Ms Lewis?”

“Oh, sing me up,” Darcy sighed, sticking her thumb out. 

* * *

_You’ve held your head up / You’ve fought the fight / You bare the scars / You’ve done your time_

_-The Civil Wars, “Dust to Dust”_

* * *

Jane’s head was still spinning a few days later when she was sitting in a different lab, a SHEILD lab outfitted with the latest and best when Tony Stark meandered into the room. At first Jane didn’t notice someone else was in the room with her till something pulled her hair.

“Dummy!”

Jane startled, falling off her stool. 

“DUMMY!”

Jane scrambled to her feet and stared at the one armed robot next to her, who was still trying to do something. She backed away from it.

“DUMMY!”

The bot finally turned, making some sort of communication noise and Jane finally realized Tony Stark was in the room with her. She squeaked. 

“Dummy, how many times do I have to tell you to leave people working alone?”

The bot’s arm fell and if possible looked sad. 

“Say you’re sorry.”

The bot turned towards Jane and flexed its claw and chirped at her.

“Uh…no problem,” Jane allowed, staring. 

“Great, now, go to OUR lab, Dummy,” Tony Stark ordered. “And STAY there.”

The bot made several odd chirping noises and wheeled itself out of Jane’s lab. 

“Sorry about that,” Tony Stark said. “I figured I ought to come meet you, then when I finally told Pepper she said I had a load of meetings to attend so I told her to move them to London. She didn’t like that, but she did it on the condition we move to London for a few months. I don’t get it, but hey, who am I to argue with Pepper?”

Jane had no idea who Pepper was. 

“So, I brought my lab with me,” Tony Stark went on, poking around Jane’s lab. “Everyone except You. I left him for Bruce. Gotta keep the Big Guy company.”

Jane dumbly nodded. 

“So, hi. Tony Stark,” Tony Stark said, sticking out his hand. “Jane Foster, love your work on bridges. And you’re so close to getting it to work!”

Jane dumbly nodded. 

“The Asgardians fixed their bridge,” Tony Stark went on, still holding his hand out.

Jane realized she was being an idiot and shook his hand. 

“But they won’t tell us how it works,” Tony Stark went on. “GQ hints that I’m getting close, but he then tells me you’re closer. I think he tells me that to make me mad.”

He laughed, letting go of Jane’s hand. He eyed her, taking in her mute, dumb state. 

“So, show me your brilliance.” 

He waved his hands out to the side and waited. 

“Okay. Do you know anything about astrophysics?”

While she knew Tony Stark was a genius, astrophysics wasn’t exactly his area. 

Tony Stark smirked. “Why, darling, of course I do. I did the reading.” 

* * *

_There’s a whole lot of world out there / That I can’t wait to see / My best days are ahead of me_  


_-Danny Gokey, “My Best Days Are Ahead of Me”_

* * *

“You want me to do what?”

“SHEILD spokes person,” Agent Coulson said, not looking confused at his request. 

“Why?” Jim asked, feeling quite confused. “I’m not even from here. And isn’t SHIELD a top secret organization?”

“You live here now,” Coulson said, ignoring Jim’s last question.

“I know that. But, I’m…not from here,” Jim repeated. 

Agent Coulson sighed, putting his hands behind his back. “I’ll be frank with you. You speak elegantly, you’re easy on the eyes, and you’ve got an aura around you that makes you trustworthy. Also, all you have to do is smile and people like you.”

“So, it’s for my face you wish to make me the spokes person of a secret organization?”

“And your voice,” Agent Coulson reminded Jim, giving him a rather cheeky grin. “Also, you’re not a total idiot.”

Jim frowned. “I must think on this. Do you have a more detailed description of what you’d require of me and what I must give up?”

Agent Coulson frowned, but reached into a file folder he made appear out of his coat pocket. “We do not require you to give up anything.”

“Yes, you will,” Jim insisted. “All SHEILD agents give something up. Also, if you like my voice and need someone easy on the eyes, why not Loki?”

“Because Loki tried to rule the planet.”

“Only one half of him.”

“The planet doesn’t know that,” Agent Coulson pointed out. “That is a PR disaster we’re still dealing with, Captain Nicholls. We don’t have a spokes person for SHEILD because we’re supposed to be private.”

“You mean you’re a top secret organization,” Jim corrected, opening the file folder and seeing the figure SHEILD was going to pay him for simply standing in front of cameras and reading off statements if need be (which from how they were good at covering things up wouldn’t be often). 

“We’re not so secret any longer,” Coulson lamented. 

“I doubt I’d be poised in front of a camera.”

“It’s not that hard,” Coulson insisted. “Ask Stark.”

Jim frowned. “I do not know, Agent Coulson.”

“Take your time. Well, unless we get another alien invasion, then we’ll need an answer ASAP.”

* * *

_Try as I might to keep it together / Why is recovery taking forever / Fool the whole world, just until I get better / I’m terrified I’ll be taking forever_  


_-Icon for Hire, “Hope of Morning”_


End file.
